This invention relates generally to the field of shipping containers, and more particularly to an improved form thereof suitable for the shipping of small laboratory animals such as mice and rats under conditions that are both humane and free of contamination. Devices of this general type are known in the art, and the invention lies in specific instructional details which permit low cost of manufacture, convenience in use, and ready expendability after completion of shipping, thereby rendering unnecessary any resanitizing operations.
Prior art devices include a variety of constructions ranging from slatted wood boxes with or without permanently attached screening, wire cages, plastic boxes with foraminous walls and the like. Many of these constructions are less than ideal because of considerations of cost, weight, frangibility, and difficulty in reconditioning the same for subsequent use. Where lightweight constructions have been employed, the useful life of the device has been correspondingly short, and in some cases, the device may arrive after a single use in damaged condition.
Apart from the above considerations, the prior art devices have been difficult to use. The slatted wood boxes referred to above are the most common type, and where permanently attached screening is employed, the attachment means has thin wire staples, the ends of which tend to cut the hands of a user while loading or unloading mice or other laboratory animals therefrom. Such devices are fitted with partitions to maintain the mice physically apart from each other, or at least to maintain mice of the same strain in a common compartment. While loading the boxes, the upper cover is at least partially open, and the mice tend to jump from one compartment into another so that the strains are mixed. Since the mice usually have the same outward physical appearance, once they have comingled, it is not easy to again separate them. Other difficulties have been involved from the standpoint of keeping the boxes in sterile condition.
When the boxes arrive at destination, the unloading of the laboratory animals is accompanied by the same difficulties as loading, in that when the upper cover is opened, all the compartments are simultaneously exposed, and maintenance of genetic integrity requires nimble movement on the part of skilled personnel.